Within
by EHWIES
Summary: Twelve reminders of Sirius Black's past inescapable.


**Within**

_A/N: This one-shot includes cross-references to two other character sketches I've written, "Sticks and Stones" and "Anecdotes", so I strongly recommend that you read them as well as this one to understand some of the otherwise insignificant or incomprehensible tidbits I've included in this. Thanks and enjoy!_

-:-

The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black—that is to say, Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place—was rather spectacular in its day. Kept up by an enthusiastic Kreacher in his life's high point, the place was bedecked with sparkling chandeliers and pristine family heirlooms. Every room was adapted to the taste of its decorator, giving the house a personal touch. Its guest rooms were often occupied by extended family or friends thereof, and all Black family reunions were here held.

The portraits shrieked when Sirius was present. He hated the house with utmost loathing.

-:-

Magical in more ways than simply literal, Hogwarts was far preferred by Sirius as a home, but all good things must come to an end—and Sirius was keen to avoid it as best as possible when he learned that his cousin Narcissa was staying over Christmas break to be with her boyfriend, Lucius. Though Sirius usually came out on top during their public brawls, thanks to the support of his friends, none of the other Marauders planned to stay at the school over the holidays—but enduring Narcissa was far better than being cooped up with his parents and Regulus, so he stayed.

He avoided her eyes at mealtimes and only met her once in the corridors while she was surrounded by other Slytherins. Narcissa disarmed him before he had a chance to blink, but Sirius left without bothering to retrieve it, simply murmuring in her ear as he passed her, "I've always wondered why Andy puts up with you. Or did you stop writing when she got blasted off the tree?"

He found his wand by his usual seat in the Great Hall at breakfast the next day. Narcissa didn't speak to him again while at Hogwarts.

-:-

He directed Snivellus to the Whomping Willow when the Slytherin called Wormtail a Mudblood. Neither Prongs nor Moony spoke to him for months afterward, but, as Sirius reflected later, he wouldn't have minded the feud if Snivellus had been killed.

Maybe that was just the Black within him talking.

-:-

Moony made the mistake of visiting once one summer, wisely entering through Sirius's unlocked bedroom window. "What are you doing here?" Sirius hissed, alarmed, as his eyes fell on his friend. "If they find you—"

But he couldn't finish the warning; Regulus came in to inform him of the letter that had just arrived from "her", as Andromeda was now called, but left wordlessly as soon as he saw Moony. Sirius's mother came up next, shrieking about half-breeds and blood traitors and how the both of them were as good as Mudbloods, and it was going on one in the morning when she finally left them be. "Sorry," said Sirius shortly when Moony started to speak, then said almost apologetically, "I didn't realize she knew you're a werewolf…"

"I had to register when I got bitten," said Moony miserably. "It wasn't your fault."

Moony didn't dare leave in the dead of night—"Pansy," Sirius said, but he didn't blame him—and as they didn't dare try to sneak over to a fireplace, he offered Moony his bed and slept on the floor that night. When he awoke, aching all over, Moony was gone.

-:-

Sirius was always the roughest on Snivellus but kept the hexing to a minimum because of Prongs's obsession with "that bloody Evans girl", as Sirius was fond of calling her. He was shocked, therefore, when it was Prongs who was so brutal to Snivellus after O.W.L.'s, and he couldn't help but tell Prongs the truth as to why Evans seemed to hate him so much when he asked, more out of disapproval than anything. Prongs was startled because it was usually Moony who made them feel ashamed of themselves.

Sirius was startled because he hadn't known what Prongs did—that Snivellus was already writing Dark spells—but supposed that he should have seen it coming with his own family background. Then he noticed the blood on Prongs's cheek.

-:-

Evans snapped in sixth year the second time Snivellus called her Mudblood. Prongs made him promise he wouldn't do anything drastic. He did anyways, mostly because he knew what the Dark Arts really were and couldn't bear to see such a good person resort to them—but then, since when was he a good judge of character?

Prongs was insistent, though, and so the four of them stuck by Evans for a full year—a year of holding her back before she could use Godric-knows-what curse she had in mind, of taking turns partnering her in classes because no one else would anymore, of talking to Dumbledore whenever she used an Unforgivable to plead, _please_, she'll shape up in time, it's just a phase, it's just a phase, don't let the Ministry get wind of this because she's still a good person at heart. Sirius doubted that Evans even realized how much they did for her. But Dumbledore must have trusted them because he made Prongs Head Boy alongside her.

Bellatrix and Dromeda were both Head Girls in their time, Narcissa a prefect in seventh year; Regulus had been prefect since fifth year. Sirius was the only one with any disrespect to authority, and as much as he secretly hated the way the professors looked at him when he slipped Babbling Beverages and Swelling Solutions in Snivellus's pumpkin juice, he prided himself on it in the world because at least it put him apart from his family.

He'd do whatever it took.

-:-

Evans straightened herself out with Prongs's help early on in the year. To be truthful, he hadn't thought she had it in her.

-:-

Sirius was convinced he was making the right decision when he changed the Potters' Secret-Keeper from himself to Wormtail because, really, who'd think to go after the little Pettigrew boy who was too small and wimpy and weak to be given such responsibility? Besides, as much as he hated to be biased, Moony was a werewolf, and the Dark Lord—_no, don't call him that, all the Death Eaters call him that, I'm not a Death Eater, don't let me be a Death Eater_—was doing a ridiculously good job of getting Dark creatures on his side. Look at the dementors: weren't they supposed to guard Azkaban? And yet…

So Sirius laughed when Wormtail framed him for their deaths in the middle of a crowded street, laughed at his own misjudgment and stupidity and self-loathing because _it was my fault, this makes me as bad as them_, but no, no, surely he was still a good person if he did nothing to support the Dark Arts intentionally, surely he was at least like Dromeda, who defied the Blacks' policies quietly, for that family, _his_ family, was black as its name and far from noble or always pure.

He thought of Dromeda, he thought Moony and Wormtail, he thought of Prongs and Evans—_dead, dead, dead, but then, I always was a bad judge of character_—and he laughed.

He was still laughing when he reached Azkaban.

-:-

Twelve years of knowing only that he was innocent—Prongs and Evans were dead—_he's at Hogwarts, he's at Hogwarts_—but it was enough to keep him going. He slipped out in Animagus form as soon as he was thin enough and spent the year in mad pursuit of the rat who betrayed him, who betrayed them all. Wormtail escaped (_again_), but at least he found Moony, at least Moony was alive and well and still the same Gryffindor who taught well and had a kind smile and voice of reason and flinched when people called him "werewolf", at least he had one friend in this world—and he had Harry. Prongs survived in Harry.

He always wondered if Azkaban had driven him somewhat into madness, because at times he looked into Harry's green eyes and saw hazel.

-:-

He only saw Dromeda once more. He asked how the baby was—the baby, he called her, because he was pretty sure she was only a toddler now (_what of the years?_) and couldn't remember her name—and wondered idly why his cousin was crying.

-:-

Sirius hated being cooped up in Grimmauld Place again but resigned himself to it, for what other good could he do while in hiding but give it to the Order? So he moved his things from his old flat in and made himself as best at home as he could in his room, never mind that he didn't care about pretty Muggle girls and motorcycles and Hogwarts anymore, never mind that the reminders were plastered all over his room, never mind that he'd put that blasted Permanent Sticking Charm on the photograph with Wormtail in it—_no more Wormtail anymore, remember, Sirius_?

He tried in vain to tear down the walls one day, only to be found by Moony, who only had to glance at him before he lost it right there on the floor of Number Twelve. Moony ran a hand through his gray-flecked hair and joined him on the floor, embracing him, rocking him back and forth, sighing, _too old too soon_.

He hadn't broken down—nothing of the sort—but Moony knew him too well not to have recognized that look of despair in his hollow eyes.

-:-

He was laughing when he died, laughing at the irony that it was Bellatrix who did him in, and wondering if the déjà vu was on purpose, because perhaps he'd died the first time when they took him off to the desert island he called a prison.

Wormtail and Moony joined him beyond the veil soon enough—Wormtail and Moony and Dumbledore and Snivellus and Dromeda's little one (_yes, Nymphadora, that was it—how could the girl in the Order have been Dromeda's?_) and even Bellatrix—and he wondered if he should have been thought of death omens the first time he turned into a shaggy black dog.


End file.
